An explanation: I wasn’t really feeling like anything so I just kind of wandered down the street into the sun as it just kind of sat there in the afternoon sky. You know, a typical ambling pointless aimless stroll along a typical suburban street on a typical mid-autumn day; nothing special.

The streets are pretty empty like they usually are. Always are. We have these nice, wide paved paths and no one ever actually drives on them; isn’t that such a shame? Even the sidewalks are empty. It bothers me, really. Would bother me. It would bother me if there were ever anyone else around here. Empty, a kind of solitude, not that I mind so much.

No, well, I just heard a bicycle’s brake squeaking behind me, and the sounds of someone stepping off onto the pavement below, so maybe I’ll have to change that assessment? Not that there’s anyone else to whom I’d be delivering this judgment; not like I’m on a jury, after all. Thinking. Does this place even have juries? No people means no crime means no need for a justice system. Oh, not that I mind the peace.

He’s, she’s — details don’t matter and in any case I can’t really tell because the image is only half-there — got a willowy voice that fits the air perfectly. Kind of like you’d imagine the sort of sound that the wind would just carry away. Is carrying away. I can still hear her but if I were just another couple of inches away I think I wouldn’t. Glad to be here.

And “d’you want to take a ride?” he says.

There’s this little thing on the back of the bike that’s just wide enough for me to sit on, in a rather uncomfortable fashion maybe but it’s still there, and she’s patting it invitingly with his right hand. And, well, I’m not about to turn down an invitation from a friend, so I hop onto the seat and take a moment to make sure all of my garments are still aligned lest I end up creasing something permanently out of carelessness. Not that I care.

She starts pedaling lightly down the hill and soon I can feel the air brushing past my face. It’s a nice feeling. Well, nice is too vague a word. No, it really doesn’t matter. We go past the facades of an endless parade of identical houses. Sometimes there’s a garden in the front or the mailbox is a different color or the blinds are shut, yeah, but otherwise they’re pretty much all the same; no one bothered to put numbers on the doors so I can only imagine the residents never leave home for fear of not being able to figure out which one is theirs when they come back. I don’t have that problem, because I don’t live here and I’ve never lived here, and come to think of it, I don’t really know where I live. But I guess it’d be in the direction that this bike is taking me? He’s taking me there? No, well, maybe it was the other way because I started walking from there?

Details.

“So,” I think these are my words here, “what are we doing today?”

She points to a cloud hanging overhead. Resembles the figure of a mother clutching her baby. Next we’ll see some rubble and the skyline, beautiful on fire? I remember that my ears are still plugged into this weird device so I pull out the wires. That sounds like it should have hurt more, but it was painless if I crossed my eyes.

And then he says, “I wanted to ask you something.”

“You have questions for me?” Kinda tipped her hand there a bit early, but that’s okay. You can’t get anywhere without playing the house a bit. “That’s odd, usually we just sit around and say pleasant nothings to each other, one hand on my ear.”

“This time is different.” Certainly is, as we run up the next hill out beyond the towers. The street just curls up ’round here, no supports or anything just floating as if someone had forgotten to draw the ground underneath it, and which suddenly there’s none of so probably that’s what happened. She keeps going on, his voice though it’s trailing off sometimes. “I wanted to ask you… if maybe you wanted to see the fireworks tonight.”

I’m too busy putting my face against the seventy-eighth floor of some office tower to care for a little bit. Tensor Systems Group Incorporated Suite 7806 11 West Nonexistent Street in the town that doesn’t have a soul. It’s a lovely sight no matter how many times I see it. I’ve seen it once. Just now, seen it here. Oh, right, I should keep up the conversation while I’m keeping up with the times. Hello, Mr. Jones. Wait, then who’s setting off the fireworks? “Yeah, sure, why not? They’re nice to see over the amber blue sky at night.”

The altimeter’s reading 300 meters now? I was never very good at these sorts of things, back when I got my pilot’s license the only way I knew how high I was went like this. If the instructor’s not screaming for God’s mercy I’m up far enough and my airspeed’s okay. It’s the vertical segment here, I remember when I was younger I used to lie down where the road went ninety degrees and be standing up and prone at the same time. War games.

Screech. Are we… yeah, stopped, could let my arms and legs out of the cabin right now, just checking that the tray table is stowed.

He looks at me with her baby green hazel eyes and I look back. I see that he’s looking back at me to see me looking back at you? Her. Sitting there as I am I can see the whole thing’s going to curl to ribbons in just a few paces. Nice timing there, well; he steps off the bike and holds it up with her right hand, and her left is free. The Lady herself didn’t have the Liberty to keep at least one hand unencumbered.

And then his left runs around my back, and she pulls me into an embrace, and, and, and, well, this is the moment where any writer would insert a kiss so I suppose I’m getting one. If it’s sexual or platonic or pentatonic or catatonic, I don’t know, actually maybe kinda the last one because I can feel my heart slipping and I regret not taking my medicine like my doctor told me to forty years in the future.

And I take my arms and wrap them around him and he lets her bike clatter sideways onto the ground, like it doesn’t fall down but left, and there we are as the camera zooms out.

Then and we lived happily ever before waking up.